GENEALOGY AND HISTORY SITES THAT ARE FREE TO ACCESS AND FREE TO USE

Hard to find but free places where you can research genealogy on line, without having to pay. Your comments and feedback are welcome to any post.

About me: Jerry E. ReedFirst and foremost, I am a seasoned voice talent and media/public relations specialist with many other interests. I have been helping businesses with their narrations, presentations, commercials, and more all of my adult life.For more information about Jerry Reed - Voice Talent visit:http://jerryreed.com

I am also a genealogist, an avid photographer, and artisan bread baker.My genealogy interest began before personal computers were a family "must have." Personal genealogy computer research has blossomed in the past 15 years. It wasn't long before someone decided that they could charge for information that should be free and in the public domain. I have always been frustrated by that. Now, thousands and thousands of pages of useful facts are coming on line daily in free-to-access digital archives located all over the world. So, I'm constantly searching for new sources of free on line material. Blog updates follow this section and all links are added to the master list below the new posts.Updates are posted whenI discover another new source or when something I have already reviewed gets a major update. Have fun and enjoy.

Note: if you find a link no longer works, please let me know so I can research and update it.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

The Newberry Library in Chicago a has long and storied reputation as having one of the premier genealogy collections. Their published catalog has been around for years. I recently discovered that Newberry has some very helpful Chicagoland resources at their Chicago Ancestors site where they suggest that you "discover the past by address." I wish there were more directories from other cities on-line. They are a great tool for researching families. Chicago Ancestors offers:1. Chicago City Directory Street Guides 2. Chicago City Directories with PDF images of years: 1866; 1870, 1871, 1875, 1880; 1885; 1892; 1900; 1910; and 1923.If you browse by collection (Browse tab at the top), there's an interesting resource that maps and documents homicides in the Windy City by location of the crime, and it also gives the name of the victim. I hadn't given crime records much thought when doing genealogy. I guess I never had reason to consider the obvious resource it can be.